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RE: Why Is The Message So Unclear?
If God wanted to teach humanity of his nature and the meaning of life, why would he ever use a book to do it? Think about it: You're an all-powerful being who created the entire cosmos and everything in it. You are capable of creating a vast array of lifeforms, some of which, like humans, are intelligent and self-aware. And the best you can come up with to impart the most important information of life to them, is a two-thousand-year-old book of desert stories? No offense to God, but if he exists he's not very smart. 😕
@diigima God is love (direct quotation from John's first letter, chapter 4, v. 16). And love can not force, as you yourself write. Therefore, God will and can not force anyone to join in with them. Therefore, he created the very first people with a free will to choose whether they would live in close union with God or if they would do what they themselves wanted - and they chose the last!
That is the choice we are living with today, what is called inheritance sin. Therefore, today, no person is born who elects the community with God by himself. And therefore, we need God to open an opportunity to make fellowship with him. That fellowship with God we can only get through Jesus. That's what God has bound to both us and himself.
God has done all he could to save everyone. Jesus' death and resurrection apply to all people, and God wants to forgive all men for the sake of Jesus. BUT the gift or opportunity or what we call it will or can not force us because he is love.
Why should this communication be in written form?
There are several reasons. Consider, inter alia, what the Bible is - the revelation of God to us humans. It gives us the only precise explanation for the creation of the earth and man. It tells us why God put man on earth, as well as the reason that there is so much suffering, sickness and death now. It also tells us about the solution to the problems when God's intentions with the earth and its inhabitants are fully implemented.
This information comes from the one best by message - the Creator himself. No human being could possess such insight. It requires a divine revelation.
The Bible also contains a complete account of God's conduct with his people and with the nations over time, as well as God's laws and principles for human life and the journey.
This large collection of vital information that has been created over the centuries could not be surely delivered orally from one generation to another. For example, the writings of the writers and Pharisees would be a reliable source of enlightenment of Jesus' lives and deeds?
Or would a great nation just reproduce its constitution and its laws orally? No, such laws are carefully written down so they can be a reliable guide to study and correct.
Because God knew that people would spread all over the world, he realized that oral surrender would be too uncertain a means to use when he was to give up to them. The best way he could keep his message to them was to let it down. That is why the apostle Paul counseled this: "Do not go beyond what is written." - 1 Cor. 4: 6th
That the message of God exists in written form gives people who sincerely seek the truth, the opportunity to study its contents carefully. Thus, they do not depend on the fact that one with special qualifications explains them the details of God's intentions - an explanation that could easily be distorted or forgotten. Having the word of God in a book also allows us to control what others are saying about him. Such control was made in the first century, when some "took against the word with the greatest zeal and [daily] examined. . . The scriptures about these things were so ". (Acts 17:11) We can do the same today as we also have the word of God in written form.
God has also taken into account human constraints. His written message to us does not constitute great binding works, as it would be difficult for most people to get in, and also to read. Instead, God has given us a single book that is easy to handle and no more costly than anyone can afford to acquire it. And yet it is so extensive that it gives us all we need. It gives us answers to all basic questions about who God is, what the meaning of life is and what the future will bring.
There are numerous verses, but here are two, that help shed light on your question (not that any biblical passage will convince you, but if you are willing to be open minded, it is food for thought that can challenge whatever notions you may have... then go sit outside and look at the beauty of the stars for a while).
Job 12:7 "But ask the beasts, and they will teach you; the birds of the heavens, and they will tell you; or the bushes of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you. Who among all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind."
Romans 1:19-20 "For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse." (If you really want to her some prophesy spoken in truth by a being who is inferior to us keep reading in Romans)
I can't help but stand in front of creation, or ponder the miracle of consciousness (that no scientist can explain), and believe. It seems to me that the Bible is the recorded word of God for us to read because we are not intelligent enough to comprehend his genius without having it spelled out for us... and yet we still find ways to argue against it.
Thank you!